If you haven’t seen it yet, please feel free to visit:
An Advice Column for Fiction Writers
Yes, I’m going to start an advice column for you. It will be similar to the old Future Topics feature I used to have on this blog, except I won’t be able to write complete, fleshed-out essays on each question. It’ll be like Miss Lonelyhearts, only about writing. I will give you some ideas below:
Dear A. Victoria Mixon, Editor: I am halfway through my novel and just discovered my protagonist is a transsexual. This is going to make it very difficult to explain his mother, who has already bought his trousseau. What do I do? Signed, Startled in Seattle
Dear Editor: When you say, “Show, Don’t Tell,” do you mean, “Everywhere she looked she saw evidence of the total, irresponsible destruction of her selfless love for that stupid bastard, and as she pondered deep in her heart whether or not to leave him and forge a new life with better love with a better moral character, she realized she would never stop wondering where he hid the steak knives”? Or something else? Signed, P.O’d in Pittsburgh
Dear Ms. Mixon: Whenever I try to write dialog, it comes out sounding like a third-grader wrote it. How do I fix this? Or, conversely, how do I find a fourth-grader to write it for me? Signed, Stymed in St. Paul
I hope to unveil the Advice Column on May 1st, oh, frabulous day. But I need questions for the first one now.
So please send them in! Be the first to see your question—and its answer—on the new column!
(Also, there used to be a discussion of neti pots on this post, which is why you will see references to them in the comments. But they are no longer an issue. Thanks for asking.)
Here are a few questions:
1. How can I strike a good balance between dialogue, summary, and exposition (used sparingly, I know), and how do you know when is the right time to use each of these in a scene?
2. I’m about to write the climax, ending, and denouement of my story. Any suggestions for keeping the tension high, and creating a satisfying ending (even if it’s not a “happy” one)?
3. Any suggestions for writing a book series? Do’s and Don’ts, etc.
Thanks! I look forward to your advice column. I’m huge into Twitter, and the writer community out there is hungry for good advice.
You often mention faux-resoloutions. Can you go into greater depth about what this means, how to best accomplish this, how close to the real resolution it should come, etc?
Okay, here’s my dilemma. (Which I’ll figure out by May 1 but what the hey).
In my first draft, my heroine finds out her nemesis is her half-sister in a climactic reveal.
In my revision, those two character start looking the same.
The problem is that it started to turn into a Tale of Two Cities thing.
So I decided to make them identical twins. Which introduces these dilemmas:
o How were twins brought up on the opposite side of the track? Obv separated at birth, but how? Why?
o I hate, hate, HATE the Evil Twin Meme. The point is not for one to defeat the other, but for them to unite to fight the real bad guys. How do I avoid making this completely trite?
o How do I reveal the relationship? My MC has no idea she has a sister. Her nemesis knows the truth but doesn’t want to admit it unless it serves her purposes. She actually wants to step into the MC’s life, to have everything the MC has.
o How do I make it so that people don’t immediately recognize them as twins…but sometimes mistake the two?
If any else wants to respond, you can get my email from my web site 🙂
Tense. Tenses make me tense. Made me tense? Good grief, tell me there is/was/will be a simple trick to keeping it all straight. Thanks!
Dear V,
I have become somewhat dependent upon an internet blog for my writing motivation. I just found out that the blogger has come down with a terrible cold and will not be available for several days. What should I do? Do you think I should send her a get well card, or does she already know that I wish her a speedy recovery?
Rattled in Raleigh
Rattled—that one’s easy. Send her money. Bloggers always get well faster when you send them money.
—V
Doesn’t everybody? 🙂
K
Yes. You are making your questions too easy, Kathryn.
UPDATED: So I will help you out by mentioning a question you sent me recently in an email while we were discussing your revisions:
“[Am I] running scared from [my] characters? How do you know when you really are busy or are you just afraid to face that re-write? Hmm. Now, I’m wondering.”
Do you really want an answer to that?
Oh, I’m excited for an advice column! How fantastic! 🙂
I don’t currently have any questions, but I’m sure I’ll come up with some in the future.
Heck no. Don’t answer that. Whenever anyone asks me if I really want something, my spider sense starts tingling!
Pacing. Not so much pacing within a scene, or even a chapter. But from chapter to chapter. And especially over the course of several chapters.
How do I get myself to prioritize my novel writing over that of other writing, like articles and blog posts? I love the shorter writing pieces because they’re done more quickly, and then I get comments and feedback, and that feels great! But with my novel, it feels like such a long road until I get any positive reinforcement for doing the writing. (I’m still on draft one, so there’s no way I’m letting anyone see it yet. I need to get through this draft, then have a chance to fix the obvious problems that I already see. Then I might seek out feedback!) The result of this, of course, is that my novel is progressing QUITE slowly. I try to stick to a regular writing schedule, but the ratio of “time on book” to “time on other writing projects” is a bit out of balance. Help!
I wrote a much longer question-hidden-in-a-rant at http://februaryfour.livejournal.com/206731.html but… I think I will spare you the rant and just ask:
Is it really 100% required that one write every day? Is it true that people who don’t and actively resist doing so (whatever their reasons) really just aren’t cut out to be writers?
The hell with the neti pot. Just soak a washcloth in hot/warm water, put it on your face, breathe through it.
Hope you feel better.
Teresa
To some, writing is a skill. To others, it’s intuitive. I’ve been reading of late a small controversy brewing over the mechanical writer vs. the artistic. I believe that there is a place in this world for both, but my question is which technique does better in the general fiction marketplace? Is it the writer that maps out every subplot that graphically organizes characteristics of the protagonist? Or is it the dreamer whose creative wind sails them across the sea of their imagination?
Answered!
Oh I’m so happy to have discovered you A. Victoria, (via Larry Brooks)! I have a long way to go in exploring your expansive blog, but landing here with the prospect of having some answers, I must stop and take advantage!
Hmm, how to explain questions short and sweet…?
First draft work on character-driven story:
1) how to know when you’ve explained & exposed enough to complete a scene – can some parts be summarized to sort of give a gist of what’s happening?
I’m familiar with the purpose of a scene, but fleshing it out is something else again – leaving some insecurity over the length of each ‘chapter’, some being more fleshed out.
(Don’t want to short-change myself or readers, and need to go back adding a lot of filler, nor do I want to drag it out with stuff that would be cut out by an editor).
I know it’s not all about word count, but it still has to fit norms for the genre.
Maybe that is more than one question.
Thanks for sharing your finely-honed knowledge and experience!
By the way, love your casual but ‘writerly’ profile pic at the bottom of the page!
Laureli, I’ll answer this one next!